During the last few years the countries in the African continent have experienced an enormous increase in female politicians on a national level. Rwanda is even the country with the highest number of female politicians in its parliament in the world. Despite this development in Africa, the quantitative research on women's Political representation in the world has not yet paid attention to the situation there. Some of the surveys that have been done have even excluded countries that do not fit the homogeneous pattern ? which is precisely the problem with African countries ? for it to be possible to explain the situation with existing theories.The intention of this paper is therefore to, with all of the 53 African countries included in the study, examine whether the already existing explanatory factors regarding women's Political representation also can be applied to an African context to explain the situation there.

Den ojämlika representationen i våra folkvalda församlingar är ett demokratiskt problem. För att alla grupper i samhället ska få sina intressen tillgodosedda krävs en representation som speglar samhället, dess intressen och åsikter. Könskvotering kan ses som ett svar på problemet med ojämlik representation. En diskussion av medborgarskap är viktig för att förstå innebörden av representation och dess betydelse.Den här uppsatsen är en forskningsöversikt som klargör hur forskningsläget ställer sig till frågan om ojämlik representation och könskvotering som en lösning. Vi fokuserar på de argument som styr den vetenskapliga debatten.

This article discusses desirable Political representation within the framework of representative democracy. In the desirable representation it is the responsibility of the politician to balance authoritative decision making with responsiveness towards the voters. The article intends to make visible the ethical complexity within representative democracy. Ethically the commission to represent is further complicated because the political parties constitute a central role in the political life and request loyalty of the politician. At the same time the politician is elected by the voters and thus the representative has to balance the dual representation.The politician can meet supplementary but also contradictory norms of action in decision taking.

AbstractThe aim of this thesis is to investigate how the Swedish political parties have been discussing gender politics since 1970 to nowadays, in order to see which problems and solutions that have been suggested by the parties to increase the representation of women and the equality between the sexes. The theoretical framework is constructed by theories of women´s representation, gender politics and women?s interest.To describe how the discussions about gender politics have been between the different parties, the methodological foundation consists of an ideology critical textual analysis of the political programs from the Swedish parties.The analysis confirms that the discussions about gender politics and the Political representation of women increase over time. The most important issue of equality is the lack of women´s rights and possibilities in the labor market as a consequence of women´s responsibility of home and childcare. The analysis also shows that parties which discuss women as a category and the underrepresentation of women also point out the importance to increase equality between men and women..

Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in the representation of women on the political arena. Despite of this there are still fewer women in comparison to men in political organs particularly at the municipal level. It is therefore of great importance to examine which different factors that tend to effect the female representation at this level. Doctor of philosophy at Umeå University Jessika Wide presented in a study from 2000 that the share of women in the municipal councils tended to depend upon cultural, socio-economical and political factors. Other scholars also mean that women have specific interests and therefore are more represented in some areas.

The activity of interest groups in the political process of the European Union has given rise to a broad debate concerning the effect on European democracy these groups have. As relatively powerful political actors, the question of these groups? views on the EU and how the union should be is an important one. The status of these groups owns democratic representation also affects the democratic status of the EU. Being based on a number of theories, this study adopts an ideology analysis for the purpose of testing these theories on two cases ? the Swedish environmental organizations World Wide Fund for Nature and The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Uppsatsen är en komparativ analys mellan Rwanda och Liberia. Syftet är hur ett kvinnligt deltagande i fredsuppbyggnad kan påverka kvinnans politiska representation?.

Partly as a reaction to a perceived crisis in contemporary democracy, the nineties witnessed an upsurge in different forms of citizens? fora, dedicated to the promotion of increased participation by the citizen in the political process. Youth councils are a special point in case as they entail the general characteristics of a deliberative forum, with an emphasis on political learning. This study aims to undertake an evaluation of a regional youth council in the region of Skåne in the south of Sweden. Through qualitative analysis, the study aims to portray the origin, purposes and consequences of such a forum.

When it comes to Political representation, all over the world women almost always make up a minority of representatives in the legislative bodies. The Scandinavian countries in general and Sweden in particular have though been exceptions to this rule with, when compared to other countries, a rather high percentage of women in elected positions. This development took off in the seventies: during that decade the unit percentage of women in the Swedish Riksdag rose by double!The aim for this thesis is to analyse what underlying ideas influenced this advance. The focus is on three different female party federations, who are believed to have had a great impact on this increase of women politicians through their influence in their own mother parties. The federations analysed are the ones connected to the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party and the Liberal party.

Today equal representation between the genders in parliament is something to be desired. One way to reach the goal of equal representation is by using quotas. The purpose of the study is to research the lack of equality in elected institutions by using a perspective on qoutas.  The study also seeks to find answers to if using quotas is a good method according to gender studies. A text analysis is being used to find reasonable solutions to the study´s presented complivations.  By analyzing different texts about quotas some of the more common arguments in the discussion about using quotas in parliaments were highlighted. Some of the more frequent arguments to implement quotas are that it would be more just but also that women and men may have different interests, experiences and therefore equal representation would be a question of resources.

This thesis aims to investigate how the interests of women are handled in political parties whose opinion programs are based on class interests. The essay constructs a theoretical framework, which shows that the descriptive representation of women is a prerequisite for their subjective interests being represented, however not a guarantee.By studying how the Social Democratic party deals with the demands from the Women's federation, the empirical material sheds light on the theoretical discussion. The study's methodological foundation consists of an ideology critical textual analysis, which focuses on the debate on the design of parental allowance that took place within the party during 2005. During the party's congress the women's federation advocated a proposition for increased individualization of the parental allowance, however the party did not accept it. The analysis confirms the theoretical argumentation that descriptive representation is not a guarantee for the representation of women's interests.

The purpose of this study is to map out and to analyze the spatial variation of female representation at the national level in established democracies. The aim is also to explain the variation in the female representation. The main questions that the paper tries to answer are:1.How does women representation in established democratic parliaments vary?2.Why does women representation in established democratic parliaments vary?This study is a comparative and statistic study, i.e. a study that includes a bigger number of countries and where quantitative analysis methods are used in order to achieve comparative analyses.

The appointing of Swedish governmental officials has gone through a dramatic change the last nine years. The tradition of officials appointed due to their political experience has been traded against the appointing of experts. In this study I ask questions about this new way of appointing representatives effects how these officials interpret their role. An official that who has never been in the party before appointed, obviously cannot consider the principal of party. With the theoretical approach of normative representation theory (representational style) I perform case studies that shows some change.

In this essay I discuss and analyse if we can witness any signs on regional dimension due to regional representation from our elected representatives in the five constituencies Malmö, Blekinge, Norrbotten, Uppsala and Stockholm. Two seperate terms of office between 1991-94 and 1998-2002 has been compared. In political science there has been much debate about the relationship between voters and their elected. By measuring each and everyone elected representatives in the work of produce introduced bills towards their own constitiency during both terms I have tried to see if there is an occurence of a regional dimension.The theory that´s been applied is based on geographical representation where one might aspect that central metropolitan areas and peripheral regions is somewhat over-represented in legislatures. By using a method of comparison between the five chosen constituencies and theirs elected representatives I have come the the conclusion that there is a weak tendency that this might be the case seen to a regional dimension perspective..

This essay aims to show how Clarice Lispector uses a double narrative to wright beyond the rules of representation that are given for all literature. All writing is determined by the social hierarchies that exist in a society, and thus the essay shows how Lispector uses a specific literary strategy in order to give voice to a character that would otherwise be invisible. Using the philosophy of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as a means of contextualization, the essay further discusses the social and political impact of Lispectors novel.Through a thematic close reading of the novel The Hour of the Star the essay aims to deepen the understanding of the unique characterization in the novel and its implications. The first chapter is devoted to an analysis of the first person narrative in the novel and its development into a extra diegetic narrative. The second chapter aims to go further into the narrative with an analysis of the dichotomy between body and thought and its interplay with the two main characters in the novel.